Ergonomic Hijinks
Rebranding in the distributed gemba
Upstream: Human-Centered Approach to Colleagues
For a decade after the iPhone was released, two distinct user technologies developed in parallel.
In the workplace, colleagues in Corporate America grew accustomed to picking up the phone at their desk or office, dialing a number for the bridge, and entering a PIN code to access the conference call. By the 2010’s, mapping the inanities and absurdities of conference calls to “real life” was already recognized and mocked. As a former dial-up internet tech support representative, I can testify: when people meet any technology PEBKAC ensues, and it is messy AF.
As consumer users, FaceTime normalized video calls with friends and family. This communication tool hacked our very human need to see and understand visual cues, microexpressions, and body language. On a personal level, video calls enabled people to see the tears of grandparent’s joy or those induced by a breakthrough with a therapist.
Over that same ten year period, very human colleagues put on a brave face and a sharp outfit, and confidently walked into a well-appointed (or not) office building in downtown, the Financial District, or suburban office park, bringing their tools of the knowledge worker trade: a laptop in a backpack or carrying case.
Colleagues plopped down at a desk in the open office floor plan with a short-walled cubicle, plugged into a docking station, fired up email, chat, web browsers pointing at the corporate intranet homepage, and logged into software applications necessary to complete tasks, collaborate with teams, and dream up the Next Big Thing.
In this throwback to Industrial Revolution and Taylorism, functional areas like executive management, legal & compliance, sales, marketing, operations, technology, risk, and shared services like finance, HR, and IT are forcefully separated from each other in the office construct.
As a product person, facilitating face-to-face meetings with cross-functional constituents involved “real life” logistical complications, such as traversing floors or buildings, implying a drag on productivity. The meeting could have been an email.
But, people wanted their voices heard, so we had conference calls. Using the web conferencing tool with the unit economics approved by Finance and Vendor Management, colleagues “dialed into a call”, someone shared their screen, and we successfully collaborated across cities, regions, countries, and time zones.
However, that wasn’t considered “remote work”, yet.
In March 2020, a generational cohort redefined words and concepts, including generally acceptable definitions for tolerable and desirable user experiences. By marrying the two-decade old and already-ubiquitous conference call with the more recent personal video call, colleagues subconsciously rebirthed “tissue paper” as “Kleenex.”
The phrase “Zoom meeting” supplanted “video conference call”.
And then, hijinks ensued.
Downstream: Blessings and Traumas